Not sure yet what it's going to be, front hub motor, or BB drive ... Just got back from a test ride around the block ( it's -15 celcius out here right now.. so it was a short ride ) and it's a blast to ride, even on icy dirt roads it has gobs of traction with the soft 10psi 4" wide tires... hydraulic disks front and back, 10 speed rear cluster.. not meant for high speed.. that's for sure !

Unfortunately, the Bafang wont fit. At least not without some major modification to the BB.The Bafang mid-drive needs a 68 or 73mm BB. Most Fat Bikes have a 100mm BB.

I'm in the same boat as you. Looking for the easiest way to electrify my fat bike. It's ridiculous fun and the only way I can commute in the winter, but the amount of snow my area is getting is slowing me to a crawl. I need a boost. I'm looking at hub motors as well but the 170mm rear spacing is going to be a problem.

Oh yea ! I know u have the skills ypedal. And if u have to get something fabbed up I am sure u can get it done local. I think a hub mid drive sounds cool.. but the bafang keeps the triangle uncluttered... hmmm. Anxious to see what u come with..

i really do not like the cyclone 500w motor sound, even with oil cooling and the sound dampening shroud.. no sale.

while unable to sleep last night i think i may have a solution to the lack of availability of fatbike rims... epoxy a pair of standard wide double walled rims together !!!.. i recall steveo or doctorbass doing this not too long ago with DP420 adhesive, i have a few tubes on hand.. and some rims.... more on that tomorrow.

yeah.. i found those ,.but 100$ a rim plus huge shipping and exchange rate right now sucks... top all that with my seriously needing to sell stuff and not buy more... resulted in this :

Norco-bigfoot2.JPG (133.79 KiB) Viewed 2048 times

Trued an existing front wheel to perfection, clamped it down in a vice.. used it as a template to tweak the 2 unlaced rims before epoxying them together... using some of that 3M DP420 Doctorbass got me hooked on.

Glued the 2 top rims together and clamped them down to the template wheel.

Now.. this is a tough one, it's a rear axle motor, being used on a front fork..

typical front fork = 100mm]Fatbike front fork = 135mm

To get the rim centered into the fork properly, and for the disk brake rotor to line up, required some creativity .....

Laced all spokes to the right side of both flanges on the hub, used the right side of both rim holes to gain a few more mm's .. put 2 shims behind the rotor that required longer disk brake bolts ( that i happen to have in my " pile " .. totally lucked out using bolts from an eZee motor being perfect length )

Zipped up the controller, thumb throttle and Display, taped on an 8ah Lipo 36v pack and took it out for a test..

This bike was meant to have a motor, it's so much fun... ... it was dark and wet out there but i played around the yard for about 10 minutes and had a blast...... I intend to cut some PVC panels and mount 16ah worth of lipo, got a 48v 25 amp controller on the way from ebikes.ca to see how much abuse the motor will take

Wow, twin epoxied and cross-laced rims, just when you think you've seen everything! Nice work. It'll be interesting to see how it holds up. What are you doing for tubes ? 2 thinner tubes or one fat one deforming around the sharpish ridge in the centre ?

Hyena wrote:What are you doing for tubes ? 2 thinner tubes or one fat one deforming around the sharpish ridge in the centre ?

The original tubes were Presta *( small pain in the ass stems that require an adapter to inflate.. hate them.. ) I picked up a new 26x4 Schrader stem tube and use the valve hole from one of the rims, so yes, the tube is slightly twisted at the stem but with this huge a tire and about 10 psi of air i'm confident it will be perfectly fine.

I used the rim liner from one existing rim, and hockey tape for the other one, ran a few thick layers over the seams in the middle for good measure, time will tell ...

My neighbor's wife expressed concern at the safety of my epoxy adventures, i told her i was confident enough to go for the first ride without a helmet .. the rims have a machined surface with shallow grooves ( grabs brake pads really well ) and the glue can really seep in there good and grab. should....